A person familiar with the process told The Associated Press that the third stage involves the NHL reviewing the company’s business plan and revenue projections. If approved, the league would be in a position to award an expansion franchise as early as next month, the person added.

In case you skimmed that paragraph too quickly, let’s underline it: the league could award one or both cities an expansion franchise as early as September.

Doug Cifu wants to keep the Panthers in Florida, but the way things are going, it’s just not sustainable.

Speaking to Fox Sports last weekend, Cifu, who along with business partner Vinnie Viola purchased the team for $230 million last September, is uncertain of where the team will be in 5-10 years.

“The arena and the team have lost a significant amount of money year over year for the last 10-plus years and the current business model is not sustainable,” Cifu said.

According to The Hockey News, the team claims to lose $30 million a year and have debt on their arena, which is leased to the Panthers until 2028, of about $250 million.

The story adds Broward County mayor Barbara Sharief and the county have hired a consultant who is looking into the possibility of allowing the Panthers out of their arena lease and the opportunity to relocate.

The results of that report are expected in October.

“We have kept our end of the bargain by signing six free agents on July 1 to more than $60 million of contracts and resigning some key young players to multi-year deals,” Cifu added.

Per CapGeek, the Panthers have over $65 million committed in player contracts for the upcoming season.

In terms of potential cities for relocation, a report out of Seattle last week suggested real estate mogul Victor J. Coleman has begun discussions with Seattle business man Chris Hansen on agreement to allow an NHL team to play in his proposed SoDo Arena.

“We get lots of expressions of interest — whether it’s from Quebec City, Seattle, Las Vegas, or Kansas City — and we’re listening, but we haven’t enacted a formal process to begin considering expansion,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told the Sun April. “That’s not something we’re intent on doing right now, but we are listening.”

Quebec City may also be a viable option with a new $400 million arena set to open next year.

Canadian media giant Quebecor has the exclusive naming rights to the new building and will manage the facility and they also have big ideas about owning a NHL team as well. That kind of arrangement would work well to run a team in the former home of the Quebec Nordiques.

It’s also quite the coincidence that the New York Islanders’ lease with Nassau Coliseum is up in 2015. If the Islanders aren’t forced out of the Coliseum before then by an asbestos investigation, Charles Wang may want to turn his gaze north to Quebec City instead of west to Brooklyn.

Quebecor will reportedly pay for the naming rights for at least 25 years, with the option of adding on 15 years after that. As we noted in a previous post, the media company will pay $63.5 million during that 25-year period if the NHL returns and $33 million if that dream dies. Quebecor’s rent would be $4.5 million with the NHL and $2.5 million if the building goes without an NHL team.

The plan specifies that the arena would be built by 2015, while the Vancouver Sun reveals that the stated goal is to attract an NHL team by 2020.

Mr. Labeaume has no time for those who suggest the project might be beyond the means of a province that cannot even maintain its basic infrastructure. “Our city and its citizens deserve a facility worthy of a capital city,” he said Tuesday. He said geological testing at the proposed site will begin this fall, and the project’s final budget will be known by March. The target date for completion is September 2015.

With no guarantee that the NHL will return to a market it abandoned with the 1995 departure of the Nordiques, the project represents a significant risk. Four-hundred-million dollars would be a lot of money for two weeks of Pee-Wee hockey and some pop music concerts. But it seems that as long as the dream of an NHL returning to Quebec remains alive, no price is too steep.

Orland Kurtenblog counters that going without an NHL team might not necessarily be a death sentence for the new building.

Fair enough, and I’m the first to bristle at the thought of taxpayers subsidizing pro sports. But arenas can still pack ‘em in without a major-league sports tenant. In 2008, Winnipeg’s MTS Centre was the third-busiest facility in Canada. In 2010, Kansas City’s Sprint Centre was the third-busiest in the United States.

That’s not to say the only key to arena profitability is keeping the calendar full – you don’t want to be the liquidation store of arenas. “Yes, we do birthday parties.”

However, without an NHL team, a new building in Quebec City would host more than “two weeks of Pee-Wee hockey and some pop music concerts.”

That being said, many might judge such a high-risk investment as a failure if Quebec City cannot land an NHL team. It’ll be years – maybe even almost a decade – before we would be able to call say the proposed $400 million arena a blunder, with five years for the city to attract a team if the arena is built by 2015 as planned.

These are high stakes situations that are often controversial, especially when public money is being used (as it would be if everything goes through the system). A lot can change, but approving the naming rights deal is a big step in the right direction. That being said, they have a long road to travel before the Nordiques – or some other Quebec team with a different name – can return to the NHL.

We’re a little over a month away from the rebirth of the Winnipeg Jets, but another former market is hoping to bring the NHL back in the future. Quebec City hopes to become the next location to get a team, but before they do that, they’ll need to build an NHL-friendly arena. The current plan is to have that arena built by 2015, but it might all come down to getting everything agreed upon according to some tight deadlines.

Apparently that arena would cost about $400 million, with the polarizing plan requiring much of that money to come from taxpayers. The Montreal Gazette reports that Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume is finishing up a “final blitz” to agree upon a naming rights deal with media company Quebecor, with a September 7 deadline for the paperwork. That naming rights deadline will be a prelude to the postponed voting for the arena bill itself, which is expected to take place on September 20.

“We don’t want to get this wrong because when these documents will become public, we have a feeling it will generate a lot of interest on the part of specialists and pseudo-specialists. So to be honest, we’ll work on it until Sept. 7,” Labeaume said last week, of the negotiations.

The tentative deal with Quebecor is also facing opposition in the province and a legal challenge of the agreement is scheduled to be heard in court on Sept. 6, the eve of the deadline.

Former civil servant and Parti Quebecois minister Denis de Belleval is fighting to nullify the proposed agreement because it is a municipal contract that never went to public tender. Instead, Labeaume used what he called a competitive bidding process, inviting companies to express their interests in managing the proposed 18,000 seat facility.

De Belleval also argues Quebecor got a sweetheart deal from the city. The media company would get full control of the amphitheatre until 2040, with a possible extension to 2045, plus naming rights, for $63.5 million if Quebecor succeeds in landing an NHL team; the price tag would be $33 million without NHL hockey.

Quebecor’s rent would be $4.5 million annually with a team, $2.5 million without.

Apologies if some of these issues go over your head – it gets more complicated as the article digs into the deeper political impact – but the basic gist is that the next month could have an enormous impact on Quebec City’s chances of landing an NHL team sometime in the near future.

Naturally, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be more twists and turns after the paperwork is signed and the voting is over. If the Phoenix Coyotes’ situation taught us anything, it’s that these situations can provide plenty of ups and downs. These matters tend to get especially messy when public money is involved, so we’ll keep an eye on this developing situation in the next weeks, months and even years.